>

"Now I'll show you a good smoke," said West Wind, and he blew some dry grass over the cigar.

The grass blazed up and set fire to the straw, and then there was some smoke, you may be sure! West Wind danced over the grass with glee. He whirled round and round, tossing fresh straw to the flames, and blowing up the smoke in soft clouds.

In a little while Harry came back, still hunting for his friends. A puff of smoke caught his eye and he ran to see what was burning. By this time the straw had set fire to the end of the sheep-shed, and the flames were eating their way toward the low roof.

"Fire!" shouted Harry; but the crowd had gone over to see the milking and there was no one in sight. "Some one will come in a minute," he thought, and - he snatched off his coat and beat back the flames as they ran up the dry boards.

"Fire!" he shouted again, at the top of his voice. This time a man who was feeding the lambs heard him and came out with a pail of water; and then it did not take long to put out the fire.

Just as Harry was stamping out the last flickering flames in the burning straw, a policeman came running out. "Here, what are you doing?" he cried.

"Putting out this fire," replied the little boy.

"I suppose you started it, too," said the policeman. "I never saw a boy yet who could keep out of mischief." Just then the two men came to the door of the sheepshed. “What is the matter?" they asked.

"This boy says he was putting out a fire, and I think he must have set it," the policeman told them. "No, sir," said Harry, "I didn't set the straw on

fire. It was burning when I came up, and I tried to put it out."

"I was smoking a cigar when I went into the shed," spoke up one of the men, "and I threw it away. It must have set fire to the straw. It was a very careless thing to do, and if it hadn't been for this boy we might have had a terrible fire."

Just then Harry thought of his coat. It was his very best one, and his mother had told him to be careful of it. He held it up and looked at it. One sleeve was scorched, there were two or three holes in the back, and the whole coat was covered with straw and dirt.

By this time a crowd had begun to gather, just as a crowd always gathers around a policeman, and the story had to be told all over again.

"He saved my sheep!" said one of the men. "And mine, too," added another.

"Let's help him to get a new coat"; and he took off his hat and began to pass it around in the crowd.

Just then a newspaper reporter came up with his camera, and, of course, he wanted to take Harry's picture. When the newspaper was published next day, there was the picture, and the whole story of the ten-year-old boy whose quick thought and quick work had saved the sheep-shed and all the valuable sheep from fire.

-Frank E. Martin and George M. Davis.

MY LITTLE GENTLEMAN

No one would have thought of calling him so, this ragged, barefooted, freckle-faced Jack, who spent his days carrying market-baskets for the butcher, or clean clothes for Mrs. Quinn, selling chips, or grubbing in the ash-heaps for cinders. But he was honestly earning his living, doing his duty as well as he knew how, and serving those poorer and more helpless than himself, and that is being a gentleman in the best sense of that fine old word.

He had no home but Mrs. Quinn's garret; and for this he paid by carrying the bundles and getting the cinders for her fire. Food and clothes he picked up as he could; and his only friend was little Nanny. Her mother had been kind to him when the death of his father left him all alone in the world; and when she, too, passed away, the boy tried to show his gratitude by comforting the little girl, who thought there was no one in the world like her Jack.

Old Mrs. Quinn took care of her, waiting till she was strong enough to work for herself; but Nanny had been sick, and still sat about, a pale little shadow of her former self, with a white film slowly coming over her pretty blue eyes.

This was Jack's great trouble, and he couldn't whistle it away as he did his own worries; for he was a cheery lad, and when the baskets were heavy, the way long, the weather bitter cold, his poor clothes in rags, or his stomach empty, he just whistled, and somehow things seemed to get right. But the day he carried Nanny the first dandelions, and she